‘I’m sure I’m going to rebuild my life’
In an interview with acclaimed Israeli journalist Nadav Eyal at the sold out JNF annual event, Eli Sharabi detailed his harrowing 491 days in Hamas captivity.
When Eli Sharabi was dragged from his home on Kibbutz Be’eri on October 7, he turned around to make one last promise to his daughters, Noiya and Yahel.
“I’ll come back,” he told them.
In an interview with acclaimed Israeli journalist Nadav Eyal at the sold out JNF NSW annual event on Tuesday, Sharabi detailed his harrowing 491 days in Hamas captivity and the moment he found out his wife Lianne, along with Noiya, 16, and Yahel, 13, had been murdered.
Sharabi described the moment he arrived in Gaza with another hostage, Thai farmworker Kon.
“The first stop was a mosque,” he said.
“The minute they took me out from the car a mob of civilians took me away from them. They started to lynch me – men and children with bare hands and shoes. The two Hamas terrorists succeeded to take me away from them inside the mosque and interrogated us, all in Arabic.”
From there, they were taken to a Palestinian family’s house, where they were held for 52 days until the first ceasefire. They were tied by rope that “tore our flesh” and after that with “iron chains and locks”.
Sharabi was kept in a tunnel for the reminder of his captivity, the majority spent with Or Levy, Eliyah Cohen and Alon Ohel – all kidnapped from the Nova festival. Ohel still remains captive, while the body of Sharabi’s brother Yossi is also still in Gaza.
Sharabi spoke about the extreme starvation, torture and humiliation they suffered.
At one point, a terrorist told Sharabi his wife and daughters were at a rally for him and so he believed they were alive. He was thankful he was never told otherwise, because he said his promise to return kept him alive.
When he was released – before being forced to rehearse for Hamas’s sick handover ceremony for three hours – Sharabi was told by a social worker that his mother and sister were waiting for him.
“I asked her to bring Noiya, Yahel and Lianne,” he said.
“She told me that my mother and my sister will tell me. Then of course you understand the worst thing that happened.”
Sharabi said there is nothing he can do to “fill the hole in my heart” but he does have “circles of love” around him.
“I remember Lianne, Noiya, Yahel every day until my last day, but it will be alongside my life, not instead of my life,” he said.
“And I’m sure I’m going to rebuild my life.”
The event also featured Hagit Yaso, an incredible singer and previous winner of Israel’s version of American Idol.
Yaso was on a morning run in Sderot on October 7 at the exact moment Hamas terrorists arrived and began their sickening onslaught. She managed to survive by hiding in the bushes and praying.
To donate to the JNF NSW annual campaign – Together, We Rise With Israel – visit jnf.org.au
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